Last year the world famous keyboard player Richard Andersson tried his wings on his own with the project/band Richard Andersson’s Space Odyssey. Now it’s time to spend some time on his main band and release this live album in waiting for the second album that’s going to be released this year.

Richard formed a band called Majestic a long time ago, a band that later turned into Time Requiem and a lot of members have come and gone in both bands. Richard has released one album under the name of Time Requiem. The material on this live album is taken from the very short tour (3 shows) that they did in Japan. They also did 2 shows in Sweden so it wasn’t exactly a long tour to support their new album. With that in mind, I think that you can question what it says in the booklet, that this was recorded during their tour in Japan…once again is it really a tour when you only do 3 shows?

The album was produced and mixed by Richard together with Jonas Reingold (The Flower Kings) in Jonas’ studio, Reingold Studio, in Malmö Sweden. There’s nothing wrong with the production but the studio lacks some equipment needed to do the music justice. Then you can wonder if the album contains pure live material or if anything has been added afterwards in the studio.

Time Requiem plays very complicated neo-classic metal with numerous tempo changes. They are one of the best bands in the world in their genre. Richard shows his skills on keyboard and naturally most of the music circles around him like for example the guitar demon Mr. Malmsteen. On this album there are 9 tracks and most of the material is from the debut - 6 tracks are from the debut and 3 from the last record with Majestic called TRINITY OVERTURE (“VOODOO TREASURE”, “APPROACHING THE STORM” and “I’LL SHOOT THE MOON”). As usual, Richard done the producing/mixing, all arrangements, and all the songs.

I’ve seen the band live and it’s not such a fun sight. But that can be a result of their music which is so technical and hard to play so they have to concentrate on that. But the fact that Apollo isn’t a great front man doesn’t make it better. On the whole live album he only says “Thank you” and introduces the next song. I think that it’s almost funnier to hear them live on album than see them performing live.

The thing that drags down my rating is the mixing that feels a bit thin and the booklet is terrible. It doesn’t say where this is taken from and it looks like they haven’t put much work into it. It feels also a bit cheap for the band to only put 9 songs on the album and it feels very poor to release a live album with only one studio album in the back. Perhaps they only want to make some cash on the band, if so why not wait until they have more material than just the debut?

If you put that aside you have an album with really well played and technical neo-classical metal. This album is also a complement for the fans that don’t have any chance to catch them live because of the non-existent touring. The new album is called “THE INNER CIRCLE OF REALITY” and once again the line-up has changed. The drum demon Peter Wildoer left the band and so has bassist Dick Lövgren.

Track Listing

Time Requiem
Watching the tower of skies
I’ll shoot the moon
Approaching the storm
The Aphorism
Milagros charm
Visions of new dawn
Above and beyond
Voodoo treasure